At Office Nomads, we’re as sick as you are of hearing about the crashing economy, the rising unemployment rate and the seemingly useless efforts of Congress to stymie the bleeding. So we’re turning away from the doom and gloom and choosing instead to look toward a future when things will be better.

One of the ways we think things will get better is through the creation of a green economy and the green jobs that will come with it. (I know, the word “green” is so buzzy these days that it hardly has any meaning anymore to most of us. But some folks have the ability to make the concept of “green” feel and be real especially when it comes to jobs, so hang in there for a sec.)

To whit, over at Biznik, there’s a recording of a live call-in interview with Van Jones who just came out with a new book called “The Green Color Economy: How One Solution can Fix our Two Biggest Problems.” The interview aired as a part of Biznik’s series on “Surviving & Thriving Amidst Economic Adversity”.

Why do I bring this up here? Well, personally, I find Van Jones to be a fascinating individual with a lot of great ideas that we as a nation would be smart to follow. Susan also pointed out that, for her, “This topic is particularly interesting as a coworking space owner – the idea of supporting and particpating in local, green economies is of utmost importance to me and is definitely a part of what we’re doing at Office Nomads!”

I couldn’t agree more. Local communities are where its going to be going on in the future, especially as companies have to find more efficincies (which means less employees) and more of us strike out on our own. Coworking spaces around the country (and the world) will be thriving as a new kind of local economy starts taking root. When that happens, you can tell your coworkers you knew it was coming thanks to Office Nomads and Van Jones.

Eager readers line up to buy Michelle's most recent book - "My So-Called Freelance Life."

A belated thanks to all of you who came out for the Fall Open House – what a great time we had!  Michelle Goodman brought an excellent addition to our seasonal open house, reading excerpts and answering questions about her book – “My So-Called Freelance Life.” A big crowd of budding freelancers came to soak up the event and to hear some of her helpful hints in person.  Congratulations to Michelle on another great book for the freelancing world!

Another big thanks goes out to Michelle Bates, our fall artist on display!  Come by the office anytime to take a look at two of Michelle’s gorgeous photo series.  They are providing a great new atmosphere in the space and we are feeling very lucky to have such great work up on the walls.

Kelly shows ON some love.

I’m wishing I had taken more photos throughout the evening, but I was much too busy having a great time!  If anyone else has photos from the evening, feel free to add them to the Office Nomads Flickr pool for us – we’d be glad to see more shots from the great night!

PS -Keep your calendar’s free on Tuesday, January 13 for the ON Winter Open House, which will be combined with the neighborhood Seattle Greendrinks!  That’s right, folks.  We’re in the pre-planning stages for right now, but Pizza Fusion and Sustainable Capitol Hill are teaming with Office Nomads to present a Greendrinks event for the Capitol Hill neighborhood.  Should be excellent fun, so save the date now!

Cats know to look up in a down economy.

Hard as it is to believe, all this economic turmoil does have some bright spots. For one, sustainable industries like those I cover for Sustainable Industries will likely thrive because anything “green” that replaces a less-sustainable and necessary product (think clean energy and electric cars) is positioned to do well in a tanking economy. Another bright spot in the economic doom and gloom could very well be coworking spaces such as Office Nomads and other similar “crowd-sourced” ventures.

I caught wind of the possibility from the Launchpad Coworking blog where they wrote about a column at O’Reilly Radar discussing just that. Writer Nat Torkington lays out his thoughts about what kinds of ideas and efforts will succeed because there is an economic crisis. Torington says he thinks cloud computing, open-source software, innovation in general and coworking will flourish during the recession because there is a recession.

People will have more time than money. This is good for open source software, but also for hardware and Make-style reconnection with the objects around us. The low-cost high-impact physical events we’ve created (Ignite, hacker meetups, coworking spaces, foo/bar camps) will thrive even as big-ticket conferences feel the effects of pinched pennies. The killer app in the “web meets world” space may just come from a Maker with spare time who sees a great need.

Covering sustainability, that doesn’t surprise me. As a writer, I talk to people in lots of different sectors. Those in the world of sustainability know what coworking is much more often than those in other industries with the possible exception of software and web developers. Considering that, if you believe the premise, “This recession will be good for innovation because recessions generally are,” as Torkington does, it’s only a short hop to believing that the innovators who tend to populate coworking spaces such as Office Nomads will lead the way to the next economic boom. Here’s hoping that as we do it, we’re all smart enough to build it on a stable infrastructure and not just create the next bubble.

I couldn’t help but use the first image I found when searching Flickr for “Looking Up” since I am a sucker for cats. Thanks to Flickr user ex.libris for putting it there under the Creative Commons license.

A new season is here and at Office Nomads that means two things: Chris cleans his desk and we throw an open house. A clean desk for Chris is big enough news for those of us that work here already, but it’s the open house on Oct. 16 from 6 pm to 9 pm that really gets our juices flowing (and that gets Chris to clean his desk). It’s just such a great opportunity to invite our friends and family (that’s you!) to come check out and enjoy the space with us.

This open house, we have some extra added special reasons to celebrate. Along with opening up the space and expounding on the joys of coworking, we’re also hosting the launch party for a great new book called “My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire.” This extremely well-written and enjoyable book is written by our friend Michelle Goodman. In it she offers practical and actionable advice to women who know they are meant for more than a standard day job and may or may not know what they actually want to do instead. I;ve seen an advance copy, and I’ll tell you, truth be told, I think it’s a book anyone–woman or man–is going to get something valuable from, in large part because it is so enjoyable to read.

As if celebrating such a book that will help you start a career that will start you on a path to working independently isn’t enough to get you out this week, we’ve got another reason to come down to the open house: It’s our first anniversary! That’s right, just about one year ago Jacob and Susan threw open the doors to Office Nomads and started welcoming their first members. Since then, they’ve added so much to the space and brought so many cool people into the community that you’ll hardly recognize the place if you haven’t been in since we first opened.

So please join us sometime between 6 pm and 9 pm on Oct. 16 to celebrate, eat, drink, and enjoy each other’s company. We’ll see you then!

In my other life, I’m a reporter for a magazine called Sustainable Industries. It’s a magazine about, you guessed it, the business of sustainability. I get to learn about and report on tons of cool things, some of which relates to Office Nomads. For instance, in the next issue, I have a story coming out about smart development of dense communities where people are encouraged to live and work in the same neighborhood. Sound familiar? One of the most salient items I learned about is a small piece of software that I hope coworkers (and others) the world over download and try out: GreenPrint.

GreenPrint is a small, free software program that eliminates one of the most annoying and wasteful aspects of doing business in the digital age. It cuts down on the number of unneeded pages that get printed when you need to commit a Web page to paper. You know the problem: You go to print a page from the Web, say a map with directions, and there’s that second page with nothing but the URL and a line of text that says “Back to Top.” Totally frustrating. GreenPrint gets rid of those pages and allows the user to make a multitude of adjustments to the program to eliminate as many of those pages as possible. It can also provide a preview of all Web pages you want to print so you can be sure it’s not cutting anything important.

And, for the enviro-geeky among you, it keeps track of all the pages, trees and pounds of CO2 you’ve saved. Which will be a lot. Check out these facts from GreenPrint (they have more environmental facts available, if you’re interested).

• Average cost of a wasted page $0.06²
• Average employee prints 6 wasted pages per day, that’s 1,410 wasted pages per year!³
• The average U.S. office worker prints 10,000 pages per year³
• While 3 out of 4 office workers print from the Internet, 90% of people with a printer at home print Internet content⁴
• 56% of people ages 45-54 print pages from the Internet for their archives, and only 33% of people ages 18-34 do the same4

So take a a few minutes on this Friday afternoon and download GreenPrint. You won’t be sorry you did. And neither will the rest of us!

Alright ladies and gentleman, you’ve been waiting.  Ever since we dropped our first post about the Office Nomads Top 5 (well, originally it was supposed to be a Top 10, but we got a bit choosy there at the end), many of you have logged your votes, argued for your favorites, and debated well to create the first ever Office Nomads Top 5.

Top 5 what you might ask?  Well, it’s a bit unclear, but the general idea is the Top 5 things we love about Office Nomads.

Here they are, in order of number of votes received:

[drumroll, please...]

1. Stella and Cortez! (we’ll assume people also dig Henrik & Ryan, their respective owners…)
2. Beer (who’s surprised there?)
3. Daily Firings (Charlie officially gets the most of those)
4. Zombie Proof (techically tied for third with Daily Firings)
5. Sarah/Jason/Derek (Susan, Jacob & Eric’s super alter-egos – keep posted for the coming comic strip)

Well, everyone, you done us all proud.  Can’t wait to see what the next round of voting looks like.

The photo above is of the original round of voting.  Personally, I was sad for several items who lost out, such as “80′s dance party,” “composting,” and “nerf gun.” But hey, that’s the thing with voting – I can’t win every time…

Happy Friday, y’all.

Susan loves to curl up on the couch with a good book.

One other quick note of excitement we wanted to share with you. Office Nomads has published its first book! Unbeknown to us all, or at least to me, Jacob put together a bunch of shots from the Office Nomads Flickr gallery and had them printed in a really sweet little book to celebrate Office Nomad’s first year of business! Next time you come in, check it out at the front desk, or take a look when you’re here for our next Open House on Oct. 16. More info to come on the blog next week, but you can RSVP at Facebook now and while you’re there, join the Office Nomads Group and be our friend.

It’s a good day when you get listed as the best of anything. It’s a great day when you get listed with great companies and resources such as Biznik and The Village in Bellevue. That’s what happened here at Office Nomads yesterday when Betsy Talbot over at Examiner.com listed us as one of the best coworking spaces in the Seattle area for women.

As a man, I don’t think of Office Nomads as a resource for just women, since, obviously, it serves people of both sexes. But I think it’s pretty cool to be called out for that kind of recognition. I think it means that we have a supportive and welcoming atmosphere for all business people and that women running their own businesses can feel comfortable here. I also think the recognition on Examiner.com highlights the overall awesomeness of Susan, her visibility and activity in the larger community. She’s an amazing businesswoman who inspires me everyday so I can imagine that her success also inspires women involved in all sorts of businesses.

As for the other companies on the list, I think Dan McComb from Biznik explained very well why it feels so good to be listed with them: “We share a common interest in supporting small business people.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned to the resources at Biznik, that have made me a better writer, reporter and business person. And it’s no secret that working in this space saved my sanity and made me more productive. Without a place to network like Biznik or spaces like The Village and Office Nomads, running an independent business wouldn’t be half as rewarding.